In The Presence Of Cats (Part 2)
Mindfulness Lessons From Our Feline Companions
This is the second in a series of daily pieces I’ll be writing about my experiences of being a hermit who meditates daily while living with eight cats. Our animal companions can teach us a great deal, IF we’re willing to pay attention to them. Mindfulness teaches us how to pay attention. It’s up to us to decide what we pay attention to, as our attention determines our direction.
Lesson to Learn: Some distractions will not go away until you give them what they want.
Taught by: Dude
Dude is… well, he’s Dude.
Dude was born on May 1, 2018, along with is five siblings, to Tilly, who as a kitten, sat with me through an entire Solstice ritual when I got her from a friend in December 2017. I hadn’t planned on having kittens, but one day, Tilly snuck out for a day and came home knocked up.
Dude got his name because he just had this chill look about him. He was, and is, my Dude. It just stuck.
He would come running to his name even as young as a month old, trying to crawl up my legs, and sit on my shoulder.
He’s outgrown my shoulder now, but he’s still Dude.
Mostly, he’s content to sit on the table next to my desk.
Except when he wants cuddles.
This frequently plays out during my meditation times. Sitting still, breathing in and out, and Dude will start to meow.
Dude is the first to greet me in the morning when I go to the bathroom. All of the kittens are affectionate, but most will give up after a few tries rather than keep poking for attention.
Dude does not give up.
If I don’t respond to the meow, he’ll start to rub against my legs, perhaps even jumping in my lap.
And if that doesn’t work?
Claws come out.
Not in a vicious sort of way, but enough that I feel it.
He wants attention and he’s not giving up until he gets it, so regardless of what I might be doing — meditating, writing, reading, cooking, shitting — I have to take a moment to give him those cuddles he so desperately demands.
Some distractions in life are like that.
We can try to ignore them, knowing they are distracting us from what we really want to be doing, but if we do ignore them, they’ll just get more and more insistent until it becomes painful to keep ignoring them.
Discernment is a useful skill to build here.
I know that if I push Pollux — one of Dude’s brothers — gently to the side, he’ll leave me alone. That’s not to say I never pay attention to him or the others — all eight cats get plenty of cuddles — it’s just the cats that aren’t Dude are more willing to wait than Dude is.
Everything that isn’t your goal is a distraction, but even though they are distractions, some of them just have to be dealt with, and if they aren’t, life will get increasingly painful.
Most of those painful distractions are quite the same as a cuddly kitten demanding snuggles. They might be bills that if unpaid will result in shutoffs. They might be health issues that if ignored will lead to hospital stays and surgeries.
Whatever the distraction, you must learn to know when ignoring it will make it go away, and when ignoring it will lead to more pain.
But as Poppy taught us yesterday, even those distractions that demand our attention are temporary. Once Dude gets his snuggles, he goes on his way, letting me get back to my purpose, whatever it may be.
Like what you read? Send me some claps, and be sure to hit the Follow button. Don’t forget to share!
